Earth Alliance Comments Thread

[Froggiest1982]

Tram lines and people movers my friend. If you ever watched the Clone Wars, when they are on the Malevolence, you can see the trains going down the length of the ship.

Central London distance from Aldgate East to Earl's court is roughly 11km and it's already impossible to go end to end in less than 20 minutes by tube. Besides, the train won't come every second as between stops, going up and down the line, and people getting in and out you still have an average of 3 min delay between trains, sometimes more due to security reasons.

This is a good example as there are roughly 11 stations between the 2 narrowing it down to 1km per location meaning 500m max walking to reach a destination (which it's still a great distance to walk approx 5 minutes extra)

End to end ship travel time will be then an approximately 30-minute train trip plus waiting, not too bad.

[Zincat]

I think you missed my point.

It doesn't MATTER how far material science progresses. It's not a problem to be overcome so much as it's a nonlinear factor in the optimization to decide how large the ship should be. Improved materials will shift the location of the optimum, but won't eliminate the fact that there is an optimal size that is smaller than would be implied by "larger ships are more efficient."

The effect is not necessarily to make ships small. It's just that, even IF you assume that larger ships are better for defensive reasons, and so would want to make bigger ships rather than numerous smaller ones, you still wouldn't be incentivized to make bigger and bigger ships (even if you can afford them). There is a tradeoff, and improved tech doesn't make it disappear.

"I just cannot justify 100m long warships."

My point was that physics provides a justification, even if you remove fiscal constraints and set up weapons tech to encourage arbitrarily large ships.

I will make one last attempt at explaining my point. I did not miss your point. I am simply saying that all these minute considerations do not matter at all to me. I am not trying to be snarky or condescending, nor I am trying to pick a fight. I work on complex mathematics every single day for my job and optimization is something I am unfortunately very acquainted with.

However I find it ironic that you are worried about heat dissipation and materials that can withstand sci-fi like accelerations, but are ok with easy and convenient faster-than-light travel that is, by today's mainstream physics, impossible.

To me, that is NOT what Sci-fi is all about.
Sci-fi is: "I'll be sure to attend to your graduation on Alpha centauri this weekend"
Sci-fi is: "admiral, your fleet is summoned to defend the core worlds. Be sure to be at planet x in the next 14 days"
Sci-fi is: "We're having huge overpopulation problems, let's resolve the issue by building a ring world"
Sci-fi is: "Our evil neighbouring empire has build ship that mounts a planet destroying weapon!"

Sci-fi is something that fills me with wonder and excitement, with ideas about technologies and sights impossible to even imagine right now. With progress beyond what I can easily imagine. And yes, even with imagined heroism, or great wars that end in defeat.
Sci fi is something that is... plausible, so long as you do not look too close. And I'll cite Clarke here
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

When I read of a setting where there's a nation that has colonized a hundred star systems, and the biggest ship it uses is 300m long, I just feel sad inside. Really? That's so.... boring. What was even the point of imagining this then? We can literally build skyscrapers much larger than that. I'll just go back to my daily job...

I think that Aurora does a pretty nice job with its travel system and TN materials, being... plausible, if you do not look too close. And allowing for a very rewarding simulation that is quite consistent and semi-realistic in many ways. And yes, I 100% roleplay the game.

Anyway, I understand we have different points of view. But I dislike being misunderstood, so I felt the need to explain. If you enjoy extraordinarly realistic simulations, maybe you would also like Kerbal Space Program. Beneath the silly exterior, the mathematics are quite complex and realistic.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

optimization is something I am unfortunately very acquainted with.

Hah, I feel your pain. Such lovely useful tools, with so many knobs whose function I do not understand.

[Garfunkel]

It's okay to love space opera. It's okay to love hard sci-fi. It seems you guys favour different flavours of the genre and that's okay. It's pointless to debate them as they are two completely different things. It would be like arguing whether 2001 or Lensman is better speculative fiction since both take place in space. And complaining that space opera is unrealistic or that hard sci-fi is boring is also kinda pointless - like complaining that water is wet 

[nuclearslurpee]

optimization is something I am unfortunately very acquainted with.

Hah, I feel your pain. Such lovely useful tools, with so many knobs whose function I do not understand.

You turn one knob - something good happens! You turn another knob, something else good happens!

Your turn both knobs, and suddenly your 50,000-ton battleship is leaking fuel all over the Tau Ceti system.

It's okay to love space opera. It's okay to love hard sci-fi. It seems you guys favour different flavours of the genre and that's okay. It's pointless to debate them as they are two completely different things. It would be like arguing whether 2001 or Lensman is better speculative fiction since both take place in space. And complaining that space opera is unrealistic or that hard sci-fi is boring is also kinda pointless - like complaining that water is wet 

The magic of sci-fi is that the universe can be whatever the author or headcannoneer wants. One fan sees a limitless future with all the coolest toys humanity can dream of, another fan sees an exciting collision of cold reality and impossible dreams in the form of bold new physics frontiers. Also WH40K exists. Ultimately, it's all science, it's all fiction, thus it is all sci-fi and is frelling awesome even if not every universe is to everyone's taste.

Less arguing, more oversized warships and senseless killing of alien species, I say!!

[Zincat]

optimization is something I am unfortunately very acquainted with.

Hah, I feel your pain. Such lovely useful tools, with so many knobs whose function I do not understand.

I have always loved numbers. I loved optimization a lot more before it was a major part of my job. 
And that's why now I'm all in on the RP 

optimization is something I am unfortunately very acquainted with.

Hah, I feel your pain. Such lovely useful tools, with so many knobs whose function I do not understand.

You turn one knob - something good happens! You turn another knob, something else good happens!

Your turn both knobs, and suddenly your 50,000-ton battleship is leaking fuel all over the Tau Ceti system.

Assuming the ship is even there anymore! Maybe it went boom!
That made me laugh a lot 

It's okay to love space opera. It's okay to love hard sci-fi. It seems you guys favour different flavours of the genre and that's okay. It's pointless to debate them as they are two completely different things. It would be like arguing whether 2001 or Lensman is better speculative fiction since both take place in space. And complaining that space opera is unrealistic or that hard sci-fi is boring is also kinda pointless - like complaining that water is wet 

The magic of sci-fi is that the universe can be whatever the author or headcannoneer wants. One fan sees a limitless future with all the coolest toys humanity can dream of, another fan sees an exciting collision of cold reality and impossible dreams in the form of bold new physics frontiers. Also WH40K exists. Ultimately, it's all science, it's all fiction, thus it is all sci-fi and is frelling awesome even if not every universe is to everyone's taste.

Less arguing, more oversized warships and senseless killing of alien species, I say!!

Senseless? Depends really...
In some settings, the only good xeno is a dead xeno! 

[chrislocke2000]

I really like the setting and the immediate action! What is really needed though is a “Big Ships” option for the AI so they will adopt the comparative ship sizes to your own. Otherwise it’s going to be a tale of juggernauts taking on lots of little ships which feels somewhat opposite to the B5 I remember of Earth being outclassed with their tech and ships?

[Black]

I really like the setting and the immediate action! What is really needed though is a “Big Ships” option for the AI so they will adopt the comparative ship sizes to your own. Otherwise it’s going to be a tale of juggernauts taking on lots of little ships which feels somewhat opposite to the B5 I remember of Earth being outclassed with their tech and ships?

Yeah, that is one reason I keep my ships relatively small, I try to keep them somewhat in line with the sizes NPR uses. And I don't think I ever fielded warship that had more than 50000 tons.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I really like the setting and the immediate action! What is really needed though is a “Big Ships” option for the AI so they will adopt the comparative ship sizes to your own. Otherwise it’s going to be a tale of juggernauts taking on lots of little ships which feels somewhat opposite to the B5 I remember of Earth being outclassed with their tech and ships?

Yes, that is a good idea. Would take some work though to create new design themes, so not likely in the near future. However, the AI will start building larger ships under the current code as its tech advances.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

I really like the setting and the immediate action! What is really needed though is a “Big Ships” option for the AI so they will adopt the comparative ship sizes to your own. Otherwise it’s going to be a tale of juggernauts taking on lots of little ships which feels somewhat opposite to the B5 I remember of Earth being outclassed with their tech and ships?

Yes, that is a good idea. Would take some work though to create new design themes, so not likely in the near future. However, the AI will start building larger ships under the current code as its tech advances.

Would it be feasible to make design themes be something that the community could submit? Like name themes. I don't have any idea how they are implemented, so maybe this is super impractical.

[RougeNPS]

I mean the Design board exists for a reason.

[nuclearslurpee]

I really like the setting and the immediate action! What is really needed though is a “Big Ships” option for the AI so they will adopt the comparative ship sizes to your own. Otherwise it’s going to be a tale of juggernauts taking on lots of little ships which feels somewhat opposite to the B5 I remember of Earth being outclassed with their tech and ships?

Yes, that is a good idea. Would take some work though to create new design themes, so not likely in the near future. However, the AI will start building larger ships under the current code as its tech advances.

Would it be feasible to make design themes be something that the community could submit? Like name themes. I don't have any idea how they are implemented, so maybe this is super impractical.

These are basically implemented via at least six(?) tables in the database:

• DIM_DesignTheme: Most of the columns in this table are self-explanatory and just define how a race will design their ships, though I'm not entirely clear how all of them work.
• DIM_DesignThemeGroundFOrceDeployments: Currently only one theme exists with a number of entries which I believe describe the overall composition of the ground forces. This table additionally references DIM_AutomatedGroundTemplateDesign which references in turn DIM_AutomatedGroundTemplateElements, both of which are fairly straightforward.
• DIM_DesignThemeTechProgression: This one is the most confusing to me as I'm not sure how it works mechanically. It seems to tie into DIM_TechProgressionCategory.

There is also a table called DIM_AutomatedClassDesign which I am not sure is actually used directly by these tables, but given that the other DIM_Automated... tables are used it would make sense.

So to sum that up, allowing direct user submissions for new design themes would probably require Steve to document about 6-7 DB tables for users, which is a large task to ask for a questionable return on the time investment. Probably a better approach is an indirect submission system if some user(s) were to document these tables well enough, and describe them in terms of human-comprehensible semantics. This would mainly accomplish the task of making sure user submissions are reasonably complete (it's easy for users to say "the NPR should use Lasers and Plasma" and forget to specify, say, how big their engines should be or how many survey ships they will have active at once) which means the task of implementation for Steve is reduced to just typing some numbers into a table he already knows how to use.

I mean the Design board exists for a reason.

That is for ship and ground forces designs. Design themes which are being discussed here are the general philosophies NPRs can use to design their ships, fleets, and other less interesting things (such as colonization policy or number of fuel tankers to build), and doesn't really have a forum as it's a very under-the-hood thing for the most part.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

DIM_DesignThemeTechProgression: This one is the most confusing to me as I'm not sure how it works mechanically. It seems to tie into DIM_TechProgressionCategory.

Steve mentioned in the bugs thread that NPRs research blocks of tech based on their design theme, then get all of the techs at once, rather than researching the same individual techs that the players see.

[nuclearslurpee]

DIM_DesignThemeTechProgression: This one is the most confusing to me as I'm not sure how it works mechanically. It seems to tie into DIM_TechProgressionCategory.

Steve mentioned in the bugs thread that NPRs research blocks of tech based on their design theme, then get all of the techs at once, rather than researching the same individual techs that the players see.

That much I know. However the data in the table doesn't seem to directly correlate with specific techs, and the column for estimated RP makes little sense to me as many entries have a value of zero. Overall I don't know how it actually works or how new entries could be added, unless they are tied to specific bits of actual code in which case the players couldn't touch this table anyways.

In any case, shouldn't be a major issue as long as Steve knows how it works, if the player suggests a design theme based on lasers, mesons, and size-50 missiles, Steve could add that as long as the necessary information is provided and tweak the tables himself. In theory, anyways.

[RougeNPS]

Guess the Centauri need better fighter defenses.